Iris buy out Hosted Accountants

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Received an email yesterday to advise the "good news" that Iris have bought Hosted Accountants. It was timed after noon, so unfortunately not an April fool. Might be good for the HA shareholders, but bad news for their users I suspect.

That's now five different companies that I've dealt with that have been taken over by Iris. And so far that's four that I no longer deal with once Iris get their claws into them. Not sure what I've done to deserve this. And that doesn't include my trial with Iris software itself in the early days, where I requested and (eventually) got my money back.

sad day. I hope this isn't a sign that IRIS will be buying up all accountancy software in the future, because quite frankly, id rather go back to manual accounts than pay them anything. Shocking service, shocking terms, forcing customers to pay for additional 12 month licences due to their unfair 90 day cancellation policy, and skipping on renewal reminders.

Thanks for the recommendations. I'd already given notice of termination to HA. Six years ago it made sense to use a hosted service.

Since then we've moved to a cloud based tax service, moved our main client database and CRM system to the cloud and can now move accounts production to the cloud as well.

It no longer makes sense to me to log into a hosted system to log in to the cloud from there. We've always used Xero for most of our management accounting anyway and with more processes becoming cloud based the hosted platform is becoming irrelevant

I don't know much of the history here, but on a 5 minute scan the balance sheet of IRIS seems to be one based upon growth at least in part by acquisition. Generally you can get enough via EBITDA from an acquisition to pay the interest on the purchase price of acquisitions funded by debt. There are synergies from size and as a business plan I would think it is a mistake to try to force clients to change system.

Three I used that went to Iris, Tax Assistant was , with price increases following year on year post the move, the straw that broke the camel's back .

I really loved the software (has used since SA started) but the cost increase eventually had me head to TaxCalc re tax, then TaxCalc re accounts (rather than PTP) and then Brightpay re bureau payroll rather than PAYEMaster.

If they had not upset the apple cart re Tax Assistant they likely would have carried on getting fees from me re the other two for years, but once my lethargy was disturbed I, like others, went the whole hog and departed lock, stock and barrel.

Which is why I don't think they are that likely to try to force people to change as if they do that some people will go to other suppliers as a matter of principle. On the other hand tech organisations don't always do what is best in the long term.

They look to be strongly cash generative at the moment according the group accounts at Companies House.

We have been with Hosted Accountants for a few years now, branded as Iris Hosting. I am quite pleased that Iris have finally bought them out. The balance sheet of HA always gave me the impression that they were operating on a shoestring. It is more reassuring to be entrusting our practice data to a company with the weight of Iris.

It sort of comes down to the issue of what makes an effective tech business. I still think there is quite a long way to go in terms of innovation even in spheres like accounting which have been using tech for a long time.

At the core you have the software, but then are support issues and of course stability and critical mass in a business sense.

Even the larger organisations can be hit by technical problems. I always remember the blackberry email outage which was perhaps the beginning of the end for them (at least in terms of dominating the market)

Organisations like Iris have the sort of moat that enthuses people like Warren Buffett.